


the world's contracted thus

by owlinaminor



Series: thorbruce week 2k18 [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mornings, ThorBruce Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 10:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: A lazy morning, in three parts.





	the world's contracted thus

**Author's Note:**

> for thorbruce week day three: comfort.
> 
> kind-of sort-of not really an expansion of [this sketch](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor/status/1005317139669180416) from a few weeks ago.
> 
> title from a [john donne poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising) because yes, i am _that_ lit nerd.

 

> _She's all states, and all princes, I,_  
>  _Nothing else is._  
>  _Princes do but play us; compared to this,_  
>  _All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy._  
>  _Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,_  
>  _In that the world's contracted thus._  
>  _Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be_  
>  _To warm the world, that's done in warming us.  
>  _ _Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;  
>  _ _This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere._
> 
> _– The Sun Rising, John Donne_

 

**i.**

Bruce still isn’t used to this.

He wakes up, and his skin is tight around the edges.  Heart beating loud as distant thunder.  Lungs drawing in more oxygen than they can transfer to the blood.  Fingers itching to make fists.  Throat burning with an oncoming roar.

His body knows it is small, tight, human.  But some cells adapt more readily than others.  There is always this moment of barely pushed down panic – this part of him that wakes expecting he has been called in to fight.

Bruce keeps his eyes closed.  He starts with the top of his body – the muscles in his neck, then his chest, his arms, his legs, all the way down to curling and uncurling his toes.  He focuses on the warmth of the sunlight pouring in through the window, the smooth expanse of sheets beneath his back, the pressure across his shoulders.

He opens his eyes.

The room is illuminated.  It doesn’t seem quite real – reminds Bruce of an overexposed photo blown up and displayed in an art gallery, every color saturated and every line sharpened.  He can count every outcropping of plaster on the ceiling, count every pane of glass in the bay windows.  He can read the titles of papers thrown across the desk, track the path of a dust mite as it floats over the bed, over the dresser, over the stacks of books he still needs to organize, and out the crack in the just-barely-open door.

Thor doesn’t seem quite real in this light, either.  In his armor and his cape, out on the battlefield, he is a figure stepped out of mythology – the prow on a Viking ship given color and substance, all burnt red and sharp gold.  And here, spread out othe bed, blanket thrown off, arms and chest reflecting the bright sunlight, he is the founder of a mythos all his own.  The curve of his arm, its weight and warmth draped over Bruce’s chest – all of this is a Euclidian axiom, a perfect truth.  Bruce could construct a new system of mathematics upon it, use it to connect the greatest gaps of the universe.

Thor is a mythos all his own – and Bruce is pressed down, flattened beneath his weight.  Paralyzed for a moment, as he once was in the living room of Stark Tower an eon ago – desperate to be worthy.

And then Thor Odinson, Allfather of Asgard, wielder of Stormbreaker, savior of the known universe, lets out a snore.

Bruce grins.  The earth resumes its regularly scheduled rotation.  He pushes Thor’s arm off, pushes himself up into a sitting position, and slides off the bed, bare feet landing softly on gray carpet.  He tiptoes into the bathroom – keeps the door open.

And then he flops back down on his stomach, his arm over Thor’s bare chest.

The sunlight flooding through the window is warm, but this is warmer.

 

**ii.**

Thor still isn’t used to this.

He wakes up, and his skin is a shell too big for him to fill.  His veins are adrenaline, his bones and muscle barely held together by whispers of prayer.  His fingers are already curled into fists.  His back expects the hard walls of a cage, the hard floor of Sakaar, the cold emptiness of space.  He wakes up calculating – counting possible weapons, estimating the distance to exits.

His body knows it is large, steady, warm.  But some cells adapt more readily than others.  There is always this moment of barely pushed down anger – this part of him that wakes expecting he has lost a new limb and must learn to fight in its absence.

Thor keeps his eyes closed.  He starts with the bottom of his body – the curves of his ankles, then his his knees, his waist, his shoulders, all the way up to twisting the muscles of his neck slowly from the right to the left.  He focuses on the warmth of the sunlight pouring in through the window, the smooth expanse of sheets beneath his back, the pressure across his chest.

He opens his eyes.

The room is illuminated.  It seems too bright – as though frozen inside a bolt of lightning, every color tinged with gold.  The sheets pooled at the bottom of the bed, the clothes piled in a heap near its base, the stacks of books on the desk, the axe propped up against the closet door – all glint in the sunlight, reflected, a vision from another world that Thor would break should he step too far out of bounds.

Bruce, too, is too bright, splayed out beside Thor on the mattress, his arm stretching across Thor’s chest.  Thor reaches out a hand and stops, his fingers hovering just above tracing Bruce’s dark curls, his cheek, his eyelids.  Bruce is at motion even when he is asleep – neurons humming, gray cells calculating trajectories and solving equations, lungs expanding and contracting.  Heart beating in time with the rotation of the earth, a steady drumbeat heralding the birth of a new world.

Bruce is a new world, like this.  Or he is the moment before a new world – the pulse of energy, the nuclear fission, the big bang.  He could build life out of nothing, Thor thinks, push evolution to its limits and plant civilizations that could rule the galaxy for eons.  But he is no creator, no builder.  He is a fulcrum – tell him “this is too heavy for me alone” and he will not tear it down to reconstruct.  He will lift.

Bruce is a fulcrum steady enough to lift the universe – and Thor is teetering on his edge, uncertain beside his warmth.  Paralyzed for a moment, as he once was when Bruce gripped his shoulders and said _of course I’m going with you_ – desperate to be worthy.

Bruce Banner, Earth’s kindest defender, rolls over onto his side and lets out a tiny _humph_ where his nose connects with Thor’s shoulder.

Thor huffs a silent laugh, leans down to press a kiss to Bruce’s forehead. He rolls off the bed and lands feet-first on the floor, practically jumps to the bathroom and back, then pushes Bruce back to his side of the bed (for such a short man, he’s heavier than he looks) and flops down beside him.

Bruce rolls into his shoulder again, pulled as though by some new kind of gravity.

The sunlight flooding through the window is bright, but this is brighter.

 

 

**iii.**

“Good morning,” Thor says.

If the sunlight had been a stream before, now it is a waterfall.  The mattress has taken on warmth, its silvery sheets just this side of sweaty.

But Bruce – opening his eyes slowly, letting his vision settle, every muscle attuned to one slow heartbeat – does not care.  He shifts onto his back and grins – at Thor, at the sunlight, at the world.

Thor can’t help but grin back.

Bruce reaches one hand to the back of Thor’s head and pulls him down for a kiss.  Their mouths move together slowly, sloppily, embers in no particular hurry to catch flame.

“Your morning breath is _awful,”_ Bruce says as he pulls away.

“Sorry,” Thor says.  But he still smiles, leans in again to kiss the side of Bruce’s mouth.  Bruce pushes him out of bed.

“What time is it?” Thor asks, padding across to the bathroom.

Bruce reaches around for his phone – it’s not on the night table, not under any pillows, not tangled in the sheets.  He eventually finds it stuck between the bed and the wall.  He fishes it out and presses the power button – no response.  It must’ve died in the night.

He opens the top drawer of the dresser, fumbles around for his charger – but something grabs his wrist.

“Don’t,” Thor says.

“I thought you wanted to know what time it is?” Bruce replies.  “And I should check it anyway, the new people in the ag department probably have questions, and I bet someone’s called from the old lab, and –”

“Bruce.”

Thor pushes gently on Bruce’s shoulders, maneuvers him until he’s lying on his back in the center of the bed, propped up on both of their pillows.  He looks – not intense, exactly, but focused, as though he’s just been told he can’t do something.

“The department, the lab, all of it can wait,” he says.

Bruce blinks up at him.  “But –”

“This is our moon of honey.  We could’ve gone anywhere in the galaxy, but you said you just wanted to be here.  You just wanted to relax.  So it can wait.”

“You mean honeymoon,” Bruce says, but the distinction isn’t really important, not when Thor is kissing him like this, hot and all-encompassing, burning every particle in the space between them.

“I don’t think you brushed your teeth for the full two minutes,” Bruce gasps when they break for air.

Thor raises one eyebrow – daring Bruce to send him back to the bathroom.

He makes a good case.

 

**Author's Note:**

> and then they slept for twelve more hours because they deserve it.
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor)!


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